As part of its Amazon in the Community programme, staff from the tech firm’s Prime Air research lab in Cambridge will be visiting local schools to spread the word about careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths).

Over the coming weeks, the News will be profiling some of the Amazon Ambassadors to highlight the wide range of skills, backgrounds and abilities needed to get its drone delivery programme off the ground.

Lauren Kisser, 44, is director of operations at Amazon Prime Air.

What is your particular area of expertise?

I worked in programme management and information security at Disney before joining Amazon almost a decade ago.

Being a long-term Amazonian, as we call our employees, also makes me the team’s resident expert on the company’s history and culture.

How would you explain your current work to a stranger on the bus?

I get to work with an amazing team that is building the future. Day-to-day, I lead the team by overseeing a mixture of business operations, programme management, engineering operations and flight testing. It’s busy but really rewarding.

Lauren has moved from Seattle to Cambridge to work on the Amazon Prime Air programme

What kind of student were you at school?

This might seem like I’m being hard on myself, but for most of my school life I excelled at being academically average. When it came to sports, I was very active and was a member of the basketball and lacrosse teams. This taught me persistence and teamwork.

At university, I figured out how to combine teamwork and academia. I learned lot about myself during this time and found that I could effectively lead teams through challenging situations.